


Songs about Lane

by bell (belldreams)



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-04 23:40:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12782151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belldreams/pseuds/bell
Summary: Luke accidentally asks Lane what she's listening to. A vignette from when they worked in the diner together.





	Songs about Lane

Every morning Lane comes in with a set of headphones and leaves with them in the evening. In between, she pulls them off her ears, ties on an apron, and gets to work. 

Jess used to listen to a lot of music too. Loud, obnoxious music that made Luke’s blood boil with the urge to throw the stereo, and Jess along with it, out the window. Whenever Luke complained, Jess made that half-snarl and bit out remarks about age and taste. But Luke wasn’t so easily offended, and after enough nagging, Jess invested in a pair of headphones. The sound still bled through, but it was minimal, and after a while it was a background drone no worse than the flies that lazily buzzed about the apartment during the summer.

Lane’s headphones, on the other hand, are of a more expensive variety. If you didn’t see the wires coming out of her ears, you wouldn’t know they were even on. He knows for a fact that she keeps the music at full blast, because one time he accidentally pressed the play button while holding the headphones near his ears. The volume nearly made his head explode.

One day Lane comes in looking particularly miserable, and so he asks her what she’s got in the CD player. Now, he’s known Lane since was a little girl with a ridiculously big head and spoke with the tinges of her mother’s accent, and he knows that in all probability he will never have heard the name of the band. Not even Lorelai’s teachings on obscure and vintage rock could prepare him for Lane’s extensive and elitist taste. 

To his surprise, Lane’s eyes go wide. She starts wringing her hands. He wants to apologize. Something about Lane always makes him want to apologize. “Oh,” she says, “Oh, nothing.”

“It was just a question,” he answers quickly, embarrassed. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

Lane looks about the diner, sizing up who’s there. They haven’t opened officially yet—not that that stopped any of the regulars from barging in, screaming that it was their right as a Star Hollows citizen that they be served breakfast that very minute—and it’s still empty of anybody but them. “Promise that you won’t tell _anyone_.”

“Uh, sure.”

She inches towards him, and cupping her hands to his ear, she whispers, “Maroon 5.”

“Um.”

“You’re going to fire me, aren’t you?! I should have known better. I knew it. When I was picking out my CDs for today, I thought to myself, now, Ms. Lane Kim, you shouldn’t even be dragging this out of hiding—because if Dave or Zach caught me, they’d kick me out of the band like they threw out the box of Ritz crackers they left out open all week!—because if Luke catches you, why, he’ll fire you, he’ll fire you good, and then where would you work? And that’s a tough question to answer, because there’s _aren’t_ any industries in Stars Hollow. Lots of businesses, all with fully employed staffs already, and no industries. I think I’d make a great miner, I’ve got great night vision, really, for a while my mom thought the devil had possessed me, it’s a funny story, but we don’t have any mines, I don’t think. Does Stars Hollow have any mines?”

“Not… that I know of.”

“Oh!” Lane had to pull a chair off the top of a table, place it on the floor—only then could she sink into it as if all her energy reserves had been depleted. “I’ve done it! I’m going to have to move back in with my _mom_ —”

“Lane.”

“I’m going to have to quit the band—”

“ _Lane_. I’m not going to fire you.”

She broke out of her disaster and woe-filled fantasy. “For real?”

“For real.”

“Thank you!” She jumped up and made as if she was going to hug him, but she thought better of it, pulled back. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I promise I’ll never listen to Maroon 5 anywhere near the diner ever again!” Nearly skipping, she began to refill the napkin dispensers, humming something Luke didn't dare ask about. Never ask a Kim about their music, that much he'd learned. 


End file.
